Page 4 of River
“Okay,” I tell him. “But we’ll start with a trial run. If things don’t work, for either of us, then we’ll just go back to the current arrangement.”
He squeezes my finger and looks up into my eyes. “It’s a deal,” he says. And then, more softly. “Thank you.”
4
River
“I don’t knowwhy you had to drag me all the way out here just so I could look at your miserable face.” My mom shifts from side to side in her wheelchair and fastens the blanket across her legs. I try and help her, but she slaps my hand away.
“I’m not miserable.”
“Don’t lie to me, boy.” A little girl waddles past with her mother. She waves. My mom waves back. A big happy smile on her face, like the girl's her granddaughter. “Besides,” she says, turning back to me. “I know exactly what’s on your mind.”
“Well, it doesn’t take a detective, does it?”
“No,” she says, “I don’t mean me. Although, I’m sure you’ve been thinking about mysituationplenty. I’m talking about Kara.”
“Kara?” I try and act surprised, but it feels forced. My mom’s right. I’ve always been a terrible liar. “Now, why would I be thinking about her?”
“Don’t play the fool, River. It doesn’t suit you.” She tilts her head back and looks up into the sky. The sun hits her skin at such an angle, that for a second, I can see the mom I used to know. The healthy, young woman who raised two big, troublesome boys almost single-handedly without a word of complaint. But then a cloud passes by overhead and the years come back like it’s in a time warp. The woman I’m left with is older. Closer to death. I just want to wrap her up in my arms and tell her how much I love her and how much I’m going to miss her and apologize for every little thing I’ve ever done wrong in all my life. “I can see the way you two look at each other. Especially when you don’t think either one’s paying any attention. You’re like a pair of goddamn school kids. And I should know, I raised two of you. Why don’t you say something? Why don’t you make the first move?”
Relationship advice isn’t exactly something my mom was ever big on. The only time she ever broached the subject was when she told me to make sure I wore protection. Or back when I went to prom and she said in front of my date that I better not get anyone pregnant otherwise she’d kick me out of the house and disown me.
She must sense my surprise at the subject. A warm smile spreads across her face. “What? An old woman can’t die knowing that her oldest son is happy and in love? Is that too much to ask?”
“Mom.” I sound like a petulant teenager. “I’m not in love.”
“Well, you could have fooled me.”
We sit in silence for a while. People walk past us on the path that leads through the park to the library. A little bird plays around on the grass in front of where we’re sitting. He flitters from side to side. Pecking at the soil. No doubt searching for worms or ants or insects or something it can eat and then fly back to its nest with and then regurgitate into the mouths of its young.
“Let’s just say for a minute, and this is purely hypothetical, but let’s just say for a minute, that I might be interested in Kara. Do you honestly think it’s appropriate for me to make a move? While she’s staying in our house? Looking after my mother? Isn’t that some kind of workplace sexual harassment claim waiting to happen? She’d probably end up suing me for everything I have.”
“She’d do nothing of the kind. Believe me. That girl's besotted with you, even if she doesn’t quite know it herself yet.
“You two had a rocky start. That whole thing with the loan shark. Thinking it was her boyfriend. It really upset her. Of course, she’s too proud and too stubborn to admit that kind of thing to me. But I can read her like a book, and you really made her feel like shit.
“There’s probably a part of her that’s still angry at you for acting the way you did. Coming in like a bull in a china shop and trying to fire her and then playing the poor-little-son-with-the-dying-mother card so she couldn’t stay angry at you too long.
“But there’s another part of her, that looks at you like she’s just won the lottery. And that’s the important part.”
It takes me a few minutes to digest this information.
Truth be told, I’ve been thinking about Kara more and more all week. Just laying in bed at night knowing she’s only on the other side of a thin wall has been driving me wild. I can hear her moving around before she goes to bed. Hear the creek of the bed itself as she gets comfortable and falls asleep.
I slip my hands in my boxers and imagine what it would be like to slide in bed beside her. To press my body against her soft, delicate curves and claim her pussy with my cock.
But something’s been holding me back. And for the first time, my mom’s making me face reality and wonder what that is.
Am I really worried she’d sue me?
“What if she says no?” I ask. “I mean, that could get pretty awkward. We’re all living under the same roof. I’m not sure how I’d feel about waking up and eating my pancakes across the table from someone who just hit on me. I don’t want to put her in that position.”
“Excuses,” my mom practically spits the word out her mouth. A man sitting on a bench a dozen or so hards to our left turns his head and looks at us like we’ve just started blaring Bon Jovi in the library. “All I know is life is short. Don’t sit around twiddling your thumbs. Make the most of it, River. If you like this woman, then stop being such a bonehead and ask her out. Do something romantic for a change. Get out of your comfort zone and show her you care. What’s the worst that can happen? You get rejected. Who cares. I mean, this girl is a one in a million and she’s probably the best thing that will ever happen to you, and you’ll never find someone even a quarter as good as she is. But, the worst thing that could happen. The real worst-case scenario, is if you do nothing and you let this opportunity slip through your fingers.
"Don’t get old and be full of regrets, River. That's the best advice I can give you. To have no regrets. And to be happy. And to live every day of your life knowing that you were lucky as hell to have such an amazing mother.”
I chuckle and squeeze her hand.
